I don't know why mothers think they're going to get more rest once the baby starts sleeping through the night! Probably when we're 80, and our 60-year olds are out late and away from the phone, we're going to lie awake worrying about them, too! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Mothers are mothers. What can I say? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

t&l

at 3 am she finally called she's on her way, now I can go to sleep worrying about the other 2!

If it's 3AM now, where are you anyway? The middle of the Atlantic? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Go to sleep. I'll stay awake and worry for you! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> I'm going to be up all night anyway.
t&l

Awhile back I mentioned that HP almost never changes his mind, but if he does he'll admit it, remember? I also said that one of the things he has said is that I've never changed and I'm just the same person I've always been. Well, I may have to rethink my belief in his implacability just a little bit. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Here's why.

On Friday, shortly after noon, Neaksis was driving my van when it up and died on her alongside the road. By the time I found out about it, it was late in the day, and it took almost 2 hrs. to find out that Farmers couldn't find a tow truck to come and drag it to the shop to sit for the weekend. So just before dark HP and I ended up going over to the other side of the lake to tow it ourselves. I didn't want to help with this. Towing makes me nervous. I guess I'm going to have to quit making jokes about my polished brass testicles, because when I suggested repeatedly that his helper should really be another being with valuable male body parts, he insisted that I was enough! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

When we got to the van, we discovered it was pointed in the opposite direction from where it needed to go, and at a place in the road where turning around would be difficult. I suggested that we tow it backwards several hundred yards to the highway, and once we went around the corner onto the road, the van would be pointed in the right direction and we could tow it from the front. He rejected my suggestion because he wanted us to push it back to the highway instead, since there was a slight downhill slope. So I pushed from the front and he pushed at the driver's door and steered...just crooked enough so that within 6 feet the inside front wheel had dipped down off the shoulder and we could no longer move it because now we had to push UP! At which point he had another idea. We could tow it backwards to the highway and around the corner so it was pointed in the direction it needed to go, and then tow it from the front. What a great idea! I wish I'd thought of that?! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> So we did, and it worked just great, too. Men's ideas always do, you know. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Here's my point. I was the puller and he was the pullee. Each time I backed the truck up, he was busy attaching the towing strap either to the van hitch (to go backwards), and to the something-or-other in the front. Both times, as the truck came towards him, he was bent over between the two vehicles, giving his full attention to the task at hand, and not paying any attention at all to me backing towards him. Given our history, don't you think if he really believed I hadn't changed at all, he'd have at least kept one eye peeking over his shoulder at me to make sure I wasn't going to "mistake" the accelerator for the brake, and squish him like a bug? "But, officer, I don't know what went wrong. I was just trying to stop and then he went sploosh." <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Yesterday at the church potluck, he put his arm around Neak and gave her a hug. Spontaneously. I don't know what she thought, or if she even noticed, but I was so shocked I had to take a sedative when I got home. All sarcasm aside, I guess my point is this. He is making changes. Small, incremental ones, but changes nevertheless. Like everything else he does, they need to be his own ideas, and at his own pace, but if we leave him alone and let the Holy Spirit work, who's to tell what changes may eventually occur? I sure don't know, but what lovely possibilities come to mind. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

OK, one quick snippet before my break is over. That afternoon outside the P.O., my cousin gave MS her phone #. I don't remember if he promised to call, or implied it. I don't think she gave the number without some interest first being expressed. But he took the #, and we parted with determined good cheer all around. During the time I was there, she and I did some things together, but while she was working I explored the area, generally goofed off, and avoided his work location with dedicated sincerity. One evening while I was at "home," he called and we talked for at least an hr.about this, that, and t'other. The only thing that stands out in my mind about that conversation is when we were saying good-bye and I said, "Well, MS, when Jesus comes I'll see you on the cloud." And he replied that he certainly hoped to be there, and when he got there, he'd come and find me.

The day I was supposed to leave, my cousin's husband was supposed to take me to the airport to pick up a rental at around 1000 so I could get to Chicago by that night. He called once and said he was delayed, but would be there soon. Before he could leave, he was delayed a second time, so I ended up being at the house at least a couple of hrs. longer than I'd planned. When the phone rang again, I thought it was Jerry telling me when to expect him, but was shocked to find MS on the other end instead. He wanted to know if I could meet him after work and have dinner with him before I left. I kinda hated to stay any longer, since I was supposed to be at another cousin's house before bedtime, and so I thoroughly reviewed the pros of seeing him once more against the cons of delayed travel. Thoroughly, I tell you. It took several whole seconds for me to decide, too! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> So I went and picked up my car, then killed a couple more hours in the library, and met him when the post office closed for the day.

We went to a little restaurant (in separate cars), and had supper and just visited. I was surprised to find out how much alike we were, in our tastes in food, politics, and general attitudes towards life. I remember nothing in the way of details of this conversation. Only that it was pleasant, relaxed, and very comfortable. When we finished eating we chatted for a few more minutes in the parking lot and then said our farewells. As far as I knew this was the last time I'd see him, and when he put his arms around me and said goodbye, I gave him a hug in return, then got in my car and drove away.

At the Andy Williams/Glenn Campbell concert I'd bought a CD that has the song whose words I want to use at the end of the saga. I'd never heard it before then, and listened to it a lot as I drove all night trying to get to my cousin's house by morning. It was a very long night, and I hit a FEARSOME storm in Kentucky that was just like driving under a waterfall.

I cried, of course, but in a different way this time around. For the first time since I'd known him, I was able to see him as a complete person, not just a romantic ideal. I'd watched him, even if it was briefly, in his own setting, functioning in the life he had chosen and created for himself. He wasn't some figure from the past, viewed through a lens of my aching longing. He was a grownup man who enjoyed what he was doing, and had made a full and involved life for himself the way he wanted to do. If he had regrets about some of his choices, he hadn't been consumed or destroyed by them...unlike some people we could mention. In spite of all the critical predictions to the contrary (from when he was young), he'd brought himself up to be someone of substance and solid worth. I was so incredibly proud of him for beating the odds, and winning with a deck that had been very much stacked against him. I admit freely that I obviously didn't learn everything about him, and that he no doubt has, as do we all, his own hangups and difficulties that are not observable in a casual social setting...but in general, he was just a very nice man, and I was proud to have him for a friend.

And when I got to Chicago I showed how much better I was taking things this time around by waking up from my little nap with a violent headache, then vomiting everything up but the very tips of my toenails! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> The mouth says one thing, the stomach another. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

I see the fire has sputtered out again. Really, if you guys want to have longer stories, you need to bring more sticks!

t&l

nice story.

As you can imagine, I'm not in a very good mood today. I HATE being woken up at night!
But I'm listening, and I can tell we're getting close to the end.

You have my deepest sympathy. I'm a night shift worker. Awaken me at your own peril! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Yes, we're almost done. At least with that segment of the Saga. What are we going to do once I quit being amusing? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

t&l

BTW, I'm way down in south america

T&L,

Thanks for the serving of beef.

I'm thinking here now, thoughtfully about it all. I do have opinions, but they are unripe.

And as for what we are going to do,
1) I suggest a good ol' fashioned flufh-phest.
2) You are a great comic. You can tell us some more L&D tales and whatever else comes to mind.
3) You can continue to use this thread as your family message-board.
4) ...

-AD

T&L,

The first of my opinions that have come into focus is this:

In judging your husband (yes, the one you call HP), start from zero, rather than 100. If you start at 100, and then assign him demerits, you will never be satisified with him, even if his score ended up at 91 because you are counting the negatives. If you start with zero, and count all his merits, you would appreciate him, even if his score is 9.

Starting with your partly imagined partly real vision of TSYTWY (The Soldier You Thought Was Yours) and then giving HP demerits on every point in which you percieve that he falls short of TSYTWY, is an especially unproductive strategy. Even doing the same thing in comparison with, say, your father, brother, or favorite uncle would be unproductive.

So, my first thought again :

Start your score with zero, and count the positives only.

BTW, I saw you doing that today.

-AD

Did you move down there on your scholarship, and just never come back? Dunno why, since this is the internet, after all, but it never occurred to me that you were that far away!

Youths stay out past their curfew in foreign countries? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> I thought it was an US phenomenon! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> You mean people are the same in other places, too? Hope your mood has improved over the course of the day. Although, since it's after 11PM wherever you are maybe you got lucky and are asleep already! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

t&l

The nice thing about L&D stories is that there's a never-ending supply of them, some of which might be have to be censored. Do the board monitors want to hear about the lady who had her climactic-female-body-part pierced? Twice?

Also, when I complete the Saga, there are some conclusions I think need to be drawn, so that it's not just a stupid story, told as an exercise in futility and an excursion into irrelevance. Stick-poking and bleeding as entertainment. Whee. I have learned to be an intensely-practical person. When I speak at church, I never go off on some theoretical tangent. It's always about some facet of life that matters to people in their day-to-day experience, some struggle, question, or difficulty that is common to us all. Why talk about it otherwise? So conclusions will be in order. To be hashed over, disagreed with, expanded...whatever. Interspersed, of course, with adequate dilutions of phluhgh from your friend, Phluhghee.

I got called off tonight at the last minute. Sort of annoying after I slept all day, but I didn't really want to work there tonight anyway, so there. I came over to Neak's house, thinking I'd go online and post while I supervised the kids doing their schoolwork. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Funny joke. Haha. Getting all 4 delinquents to work on their stuff at the same time is like trying to push spaghetti uphill. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

t&l

OK, let me clarify a couple of things. First, I don't feel that ordinarily I do focus on HP's "negatives." I realize that in telling the Saga, certain negatives from both of us (<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />) were included to explain what had happened and why. That was then. We really haven't delved much into the now, simply because we weren't there yet. I have already expressed, though, even if was briefly and in passing, that I generally try to choose not to get bogged down in his personal quicksand, but to enjoy what I can with him and stay out of the rest.

Let me give an example. Delicate, easily-offended people may skip to the next anecdote. Flard was supposed to repair a section of my roof--in July. He did part of it, but had too much fun being in CA to complete it, so returned to AZ without finishing it, andwith the understanding that Neakbro would complete it.Neakbro got some additional stuff done, but managed to delay enough of it that school started at the end of August and he couldn't "help" any longer. OK, now Neak's husband and Chardandbroiled (who is living at our house for free while he "gets back on his feet") were supposed to finish it. It is now mid-September. The roof is still not completed. C&B manages to be busy every time there is work to do. Neak's husband has trouble working it into his schedule, but struggles with it incrementally...and winter (and RAIN) is steadily approaching. DO YOU KNOW HOW FRUSTRATING THIS IS TO ME?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm already working as much as I can, after all, and not for myself either. And I don't know how to roof!

Neak talked about doing it with Neaksis, but she gets pregnancy-related dizziness even on solid ground, and there's NO way she's going up on that roof. During all this time, HP has managed to keep up a fairly-steady stream of complaints about the roof and how long it's taking and didn't we know it's going to rain soon? Etc., etc., etc. But get up on the roof himself? Surely you jest! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> Now to be fair, he's almost 60 years old and fat, but if it were something he wanted to do, he wouldn't let a little thing like age or pudge stop him for a minute. Still, this habit of his of constantly criticizing everyone for what he won't do himself is a source of great irritation to me, and something I struggle to overcome almost daily, so hearing about the roof from Mr. Indifference is a real burr under my mental saddle.

After years of consistent practice, I have developed the ability, habit, attitude, or SOMETHING, not to brood about irritating things as long as they're not actively irritating me at that very moment. However, I'm not immune to being annoyed when somebody's immediately annoying in my personal vicinty. Most of the time I try to let his digs pass without comment, but not always. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> Today was one of those days. Neak's hubby and Neaksis came over in the afternoon to work on the roof. After they arrive, HP comes into MY room, where I'm happily goofing off on the computer before leaving for work, and starts complaining about the slow progress being made. And this, after he made them take a bunch off because it didn't meet his high specifications! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> When he was done whining, I told him, "You know, this is JUST like you. You never do anything to help, but you always manage to criticize other people's work, and to complain about what they're doing wrong after they've done it." I returned to the computer in dignified and offended silence and he went away without comment.

After that, I didn't see him for another hour or so. By the time he reappeared I was getting ready to come to Neak's house for the evening, having been booted out of my job for tonight. I walked out of the room to see him standing there in the middle of the room, with his lips puckered up to be kissed. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Now, I'm sure you are all elegant and refined people who would never dream of the impropriety and coarseness about to be discussed. That would be you. I'm me. Due to my age, excessive childbearing, and generally ineffective musculature, I have been known (on occasion!) to have some grave difficulties in controlling , um, ah, noxious emissions. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> I can see you all getting ready to gasp in horror. Don't do it. That would be a bad idea. Really. So as I approached those puckered lips, I was accompanied by a low, rumbling sound vaguely-reminiscent of an outboard motor with a fuel injection problem. As I passed him, I gave him the kiss he obviously expected...at which point he asked me, "So...which end am I supposed to believe?" (Did I EVER say he didn't have a sense of humor!) My answer? "It's your choice!" So we both laughed, hahahaha, and I went on about my way.

For the most part, I think I am nice to him. Yes, I spoke a couple of snarky sentences today in a frustrated moment, but I didn't pursue an argument, and when he came back later (without an apology, by the way, or a thanks for the effort being made by many people to get a roof over his ungrateful head) and wanted to be "friends" I dropped it immediately and went forward. I think it may be beyond my capacity to be more accomodating than that! As it is, I get a mental hernia some days just from the sheer effort of being. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Well, it looks like one is all we're getting to tonight. Guess I won't be trying to post during homework sessions again! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> It's a night off and I'm going to bed. See y'all later.

t&l

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Im trying as fast as i can - im out of shape and quality takes time you know.i will get it done so there's no more complaining <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I wasn't complaining at YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't worry, I just spent the last 20 minutes hearing about his dissatisfactions with the progress (or lack thereof) being made by C&B, and how the condition of the house prevents him from inviting people over because he's ashamed of its condition. Hello-o-o-o-o-o-o-o? Who is it that refuses to work on it?

Sometimes I just feel like giving up. I'd move into a cave and become a (*&*&%*&^*(&*() hermit, but there's no money in it! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> I'm taking my sad and sorry butt off to bed for a bit of welcome oblivion. All my problems will still be lined up at the door tomorrow, clamoring for attention.

Thank you, my dear, for all your efforts on the roof. I want you to know that I really appreciate what you've done, as well as the effort you have put, and are putting, into restoring your marriage to Neak. OK, perhaps there was a little TOO much effort that one night, but if it's a girl, I'll even forgive you that! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

t&l

Hi AJ,

You're the H of Neak, right?

I never did roofing either. I think my roof still leaks, too. I try not to look.

-AD

Ah, yes, the manly art of home maintenance. Apparently the same on the West Coast as it is in the South! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

t&l

Hi AD,

Yes i am

i have done some roof jobs when i was a teenager and could flex like a rubber band, at the age of 33 and out of shape. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Mom

isn't it past your bed time????? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

No response. Sounds of snoring next to the darkened computer monitor screen.

Oh, leaky roof stories! At this moment, we have waterstains in our den ceiling, with the popcorn ceiling jumk falling off. There's no point in repainting or re-popcorning it, though, until the leak is fixed.

The reason our roof leaks is because we added on to our house on the end where the chimney is. The leak is where the roof adjoins the chimney. When it rains really hard, you can see the water dripping down the brick of the fireplace on the den side.

H has tarred and fiddled with it for years, to no avail. It still leaks.

We put a metal roof on our house a couple of years ago. Since we have converted our former wood-burning fireplace to gas logs that don't have to be vented, I suggested that we knock the chimney off to below the roof line and just install the new roof over it, thus ending the leaks.

For some reason, that wasn't a good idea...maybe because it was my idea. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Hi, A.J., I think it's really cool that you're willing to take up the slack for HP and everybody else who was supposed to have already fixed the danged roof. The next time HP fusses about the roofing job, would it be a terrible faux pas to say something like, "Well, it may not be quite the quality of work you expect, but you can't beat the price of labor." <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

You know, t&l, I think HP must have been a little ashamed of his complaining after you told him off...and he wanted to be sure of getting back into your good graces. The guy loves ya'.

Oh, and on the --er, emissions...it's really embarassing when you can't stop, not just one, but several at a peak moment of romantic interaction. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />